


worlds that never were (the end is all that's ever true)

by CaesarVulpes



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Power Swap, Burns, Canon Asexual Character, Desolation!Martin, Eye For An Eye managed to hit my Jonmartin bone without having them even interact, Lonely!Jon, M/M, Self-Harm, also I don't know if I made it clear enough that they're NOT about to have sex, just heavily inspired, nonsexual masochism, not officially set in the Eye For An Eye universe unless the author tells me it is, probably because all my bones are jonmartin bones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 00:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21226679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaesarVulpes/pseuds/CaesarVulpes
Summary: This is how he worships his dead god. The ringing numbness of deadened, burnt flesh.Inspired by embarassingly minor details of Mad_Maudlin's An Eye For An Eye





	worlds that never were (the end is all that's ever true)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [An Eye for an Eye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20116885) by [Mad_Maudlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin). 

Martin holds out his thumb with that soft, wry smile that makes the dead butterflies in Jon’s stomach twitch.

“Thank you, Martin.”

Jon presses the end of his cigarette to it, and can’t help brushing the backs of his knuckles against Martin’s. God, it hurts, searing fresh pink into his skin, and he loves it as much as he can love anything these days. If he held Martin’s hand, his cold flesh would sizzle and warp and perhaps they could simply melt together into blissful tallow. Never alone. Never cold. Never Lonely.

He draws back from the blistering heat and settles back into the sofa. One day, perhaps, but the soft numbness of Forsaken is still, for now, sweeter than the agony of Martin’s touch. One day.

“How’s your mother?” He asks, softly. Smoke drifting around his face and making the tiny flat delightfully hazy.

“Same, really,” Martin says. “I don’t much feel like talking about it.”

He reaches out and takes Jon by the back of the neck. It stings but it doesn’t burn, not yet. Presses their foreheads together. Presses his feverish mouth to Jon’s.

His lips sting and his tongue feels raw, and it’s perfect. Each point of contact makes the rest of him feel colder. Martin’s hands on his face are a cruelty and a mercy at once, not enough to melt the delicate layers of tissue but too much for comfort. It's _p__erfect_.

“I love missing you,” Jon whispers against Martin’s lips. Martin smiles and kisses him again, deeper, and starts to work his shirt open. The buttons are beginning to melt. “I love the taste of you missing _me_.”

He tangles his fingers in Martin’s hair and lounges, smokes, lets Martin peruse the intricate map of burns they’ve spent so many years layering into his skin. Lets him kiss softly, gently, at the much older cigarette marks on his arms.

Jon remembers, distantly, the time before his recruitment by the Lukases—with clarity, but as though they are someone else’s experiences. Remembers pressing glowing embers into his skin, desperate to _feel._

In the present, his arm burns with sudden white-hot pain. He drops out of the fog with a pained gasp, looks up into Martin’s pretty brown eyes.

“Are you here, Jon?” His fingers tighten on Jon’s side and sting prettily.

“I’m sorry,” he says, though he isn’t. He stubs out his smoke on the arm of Martin's couch. It's seen much worse.

“I’m about to start, so pay attention.”

Martin digs a thumb into the space just under his ribs and the world condenses into sweet warmth, then pain, then _agony._

He tips his head back and whimpers shakily through it. This is how he worships his dead god. Salt and smoke, the ebb and flow of contact, withdrawal, connection, isolation, cruel and steady as the sea. The ringing numbness of deadened, burnt flesh. He could never feel the aching absence of touch as acutely if its memory wasn't branded into his flesh.

He gasps for breath as Martin pulls away, tears stinging his tender cheeks. He can smell it, now, cooking meat with a burning-dust undertone.

“Too much?”

“Yes,” he sobs.

“Another?”

“_Yes._”

**Author's Note:**

> Mad_Maudlin's delightful Gerry-centric role/power swap fic sent me into a gay spiral and I hope they like this. Title from Burn by The Cure because I'm an obvious ass bitch


End file.
